Staten Island slay victim not alone in this world after all

Neighbors and former co-workers remarked on her shyness and reserve, but to the members of her extended family, murder victim Colene Adams was a warm, outgoing soul who confided in them.

"If you were in her inner circle, you were like family to her or you were family to her," said her cousin, Ebony Veney of Effort, Pa. "I was her cousin, but we were like sisters. My sons thought she was their aunt because she called them her nephews."

Police believe 43-year-old Ms. Adams was strangled and stabbed to death, then set ablaze by her 18-year-old boyfriend and his 19-year-old friend in her Tompkinsville apartment early Sunday morning.

Her body remains in the custody of the city medical examiner's office, but only until an aunt and uncle from New Jersey can make funeral arrangements, Ms. Veney said.

She recalled her older cousin's looking after her when she was younger, and the two later bonded by going to dinners and family gatherings and spending nights on the town together.

"She's a very, very good and giving person," Ms. Veney said. "If she saw a person that was in need, she would help."

Ms. Veney, who recently moved from Staten Island to Pennsylvania and gave birth to a boy, said she last saw Ms. Adams in August. "She was fine. She was in good spirits."

In September, the two spoke on the phone about the baby, and last month, they exchanged text messages.

Ms. Veney said she didn't know anything about her cousin's boyfriend, Luis Morell, 18, who along with Jose Capo, 19, is charged in the slaying.

"My third son, who is two months old, due to this horrific crime will never know her or her beauty," she lamented.

Ms. Veney admitted that Ms. Adams could come off as shy, but added that her cousin's neighbors and old co-workers only saw one side of her.

"I've seen her up. I've seen her down," Ms. Veney said. "I don't want her last memory to be that she was a lonely person."